Global fusion leaders recently gathered at London’s Science Museum for FUSION24, showcasing latest developments from labs around the world amid calls for increased public-private investment to accelerate commercialisation.

Dubbed the ‘world’s greatest fusion energy showcase’ the full day of panel discussions and networking was organised by UKAEA (UK Atomic Energy Authority) - the UK’s national fusion energy laboratory - and The Fusion Cluster.

Novatron Fusion Group attended ‘en masse’ with senior management including Chief Executive Officer Peter Roos, Head of Investor Relations & Partnerships Philip von Segebaden, Strategy & Financial Manager Linnea Strömstedt and Chief Communications Officer Linda Nyberg.

The event provided an opportunity for Novatron Fusion Group to advance discussions with key players across the global fusion community - including investors, academics, scientists, governments and fellow developers to ‘reach fusion faster’. We also hosted a separate function post conference to continue discussions with close partners.

It comes just weeks after Novatron Fusion Group signed an MoU with the UKAEA. Read more here.

In addition, FUSION24 saw CCO Linda Nyberg taking to the stage to moderate panels with focus on “Maximizing opportunity, ensuring safety” and “Building the tomorrow we need” accompanied by Sally Forbes from UKAEA, Richard Pearson from Kyoto Fusioneering, Mike O’Neill from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Milena Roveda from Gauss Fusion and Sean Lynch from AtkinsRéalis.

The panels underlined the need for international cooperation to establish a unified regulatory framework, based on the same set of safety principles (even if different countries may take slightly different paths in terms of regulation within their own jurisdictions). Proactivity from the UK government – which has provided clarity on the regulation of prototype and demonstration fusion facilities – was flagged as a major positive making the UK a “great place to do fusion”.

Transformative potential of fusion energy

FUSION24 kicked off with prominent climate change expert at University College London, Mark Maslin delivering the keynote: “What Does a Fusion Future Look Like?”. His presentation showcased the transformative potential of fusion energy, emphasizing its promise of abundant, sustainable energy to address global challenges. Maslin’s insights set the stage for later discussions on how fusion technology can stimulate economic growth, enhance global security, and improve quality of life worldwide. 

Maslin highlighted that global energy usage will at least double by 2050, requiring circa 20 TW of energy generation. To achieve this in a clean way - boosting GDP around the world without CO2 emissions – he states we will need fusion energy.

“We have to drive the science and the engineering forward so we can realise the dream of huge amounts of clean energy in the future because that will allow us to deal with things like climate change, extreme poverty, and lift the world into a brighter fusion future,” he said.

The conference served an important function highlighting recent advances across the industry including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) fourth net energy gain from a nuclear fusion reaction. The California-based facility, which uses an inertial confinement fusion process, has consistently broken records since it was commissioned in 2009, reaching 3.88 MJ in energy output in July, more than double the energy that was put in.

Nevertheless, Tammy Ma, Lead for the Inertial Fusion Energy Initiative at LLNL, emphasised how the giant leap to commercial-scale for the lab’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and those like it would only be possible with increased levels of investment. “In terms of building a full-scale power plant, it depends on overall investment, and it will take partnership between the public and private sector. It is crude, but progress is measured by the amount of money that goes into the system,” she said.

It comes as engineers at Novatron Fusion Group recently completed a complex multi-system integration project to create plasma, marking a Scandinavian first and raising ambitions for the Nordics’ fusion energy sector. Read more here.

The NOVATRON technology is the world’s only stable mirror-machine concept. Now in our second year of formal operation, Novatron Fusion Group is rapidly advancing construction work to launch its first official test facility - the Novatron 1 (N1) – later in 2024.

Investment and recognition

Heavy investment remained a common thread throughout FUSION24, with many speakers emphasising how harmonizing public and private funding is essential for speeding up the development and deployment of innovative technologies, particularly in areas such as clean energy and fusion power. Public and private funding each play unique but complementary roles, and their effective combination can lead to significant advancements.

 Panellists also signposted the USA’s ‘milestone-based’ cost-share programme for financing fusion, where investors set output targets for companies, with private firms handling risk and the government only putting money in when the targets have been met.

Phil Larochelle, a partner at US-based Breakthrough Energy Ventures, said that the equivalent of the programme has been used in fission and appropriated US$2.5bn. “If you significantly fund programmes like this one, it is going to open the doors for a bunch of private capital that is sitting on the sidelines,” he said.

Andrew Lo, Director at MIT’s laboratory for financial engineering, said: “Governments should be increasing their funding to multiple billions of dollars, which is basic maths when you look at what scaling is going to take. Governments play a critical role. In China, where the term of a politician is probably longer than 20 years, what are they doing? They’re doubling down on fusion and investing extraordinary amounts of public money to make it happen. So, I think the younger generation here needs to talk to politicians about dramatically increasing support for fusion energy programmes.”

Building a future fusion ecosystem

The UK government is currently looking for engineering and construction partners to build the UK’s much anticipated prototype plant, the Spherical Tokomak for Energy Production (STEP) facility, with contracts set to be awarded by late 2025. For the next two years, the government has put aside £650m as part of its Fusion Futures programme, which aims to support commercialisation efforts and collaboration with international fusion programmes like ITER.

Alasdair Morrison, CTO at Oxford Sigma, said: “It’s really important for investors to remember that Fusion isn’t a package solution, it’s a whole ecosystem that will need to be built together. As a company you could be investing into a part of the supply chain that might be really critical and have good spinoffs, or you could be investing into building an education program. It’s recognising that it’s not just cash on the table to a plasma developer, there’s a lot more to do and enough space for everybody to be involved in some way.”

Other panels covered topics including funding incentives for fusion and its role in existing industries like steelmaking.

 Rory Scott Russell, Head of Venture Capital at East Alpha, said: “Fusion has unique characteristics, one of those is the high-quality industrial heat output which can be used to decarbonise steel and the petrochemical industry, and not only decarbonise, but bring those industries back on to friendly shores. These could be the first ‘go-to’ markets for the first fusion systems.”

Rounding off the event, chief organiser and Fusion Cluster Manager Valerie Jamieson who moderated all sessions on the main stage, said:

“One of the themes I picked up from the stage was parallels with other industries including the wind industry, deep tech, parallels with NASA programmes, and the vaccine programme with biotech… it's really given me a lot of hope.”